SAOIRSE32

Belfast Telegraph

History under the hammer

This weekend an original copy of the 1916 proclamation will go under the hammer at a dublin auction house, its guide price up to £140,000. Last month a surrender letter signed by Padraig Pearse fetched almost £500,000. Why are Irish historical documents and memorabilia attracting such dizzyingly high bids and who is buying? Mary Fitzgerald reports.

08 June 2005

At first glance it appears rather unremarkable. A small rectangle of yellowing card, stained, lined and faded. On one side, the fancy typeface tells us it is a press ticket, printed for the visit of one Michael Collins to Armagh on September 4.

The spaces for the name of the reporter, newspaper and signature are unfilled. So far, so unremarkable. But turn the card over and you see why this blank Press ticket is expected to attract so much attention at an auction house in Dublin this weekend.

On the back of the card is the faint signature, in Irish, of the Big Fellow himself - Miceal O Coileann (Michael Collins) - along with the date 4/9/1921, less than a year before the Irish revolutionary was shot dead in a civil war ambush.

The asking price? A fairly reasonable £300-£500. But, as Ian Whyte, director of Whyte’s auction rooms, acknowledges, that guide price could go anywhere on the day of the sale.

Irish historical memorabilia - particularly that connected to the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War - has become increasingly popular at auction in recent years. Anything to do with 1916 has seen its value rocket, a trend auctioneers reckon will only accelerate as the centenary of the Rising approaches.

Perhaps the best example is the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, an original copy of which is also set to go under the hammer this weekend at Whyte’s.

Billed in the auction catalogue as “the document that launched an uprising that changed Ireland forever”, a copy was famously placed at the foot of Nelson’s Pillar that Easter Monday morning as Padraig Pearse read the proclamation aloud from the steps of the GPO. The fate of the known remaining copies, many of which have been rooted out from attics, drawers and long-forgotten cupboards, has sometimes proved as peculiar as the document itself.

Original copies can be identified by a number of unique features. The printer, Christopher Brady, produced the poster on poor quality paper using an old press in Dublin’s Liberty Hall. Operating in secret and with meagre resources, the printers ran out of the letter ‘e’ in its original typeface and were forced to use a gothic ‘e’ instead. They later ran out of type and had to print the document in two halves. Because of paper shortages, plans to print 2,000 copies had to be shelved in favour of a more modest run of 1,000. Many of these were destroyed when Liberty Hall was raided by British soldiers and it is estimated that as few as 500 were actually distributed around the city. Most were destroyed during the rebellion and only between 20 and 30 are believed to still exist.

“Of the 30 or so in existence, 20 are in institutions already so there are really only 10 or 12 knocking around in private hands,” explains Ian Whyte. Hence the steep auction bids.

In 1997, Sotheby’s sold a copy for £30,000. A new record was set in December 2003 when another copy fetched £55,000, surpassed just six months later when a buyer paid £110,000 for their own piece of Irish history.

Last December auction-goers watched, mouths agape, as an anonymous buyer, bidding by telephone, nudged the final price for yet another copy to a cool new record - €390,000 (£270,000).

“That exceptional result could prove to be just a blip,” says Whyte. “We won’t know until Sunday. As we get closer to the centenary of 1916, I think these things are going to get more and more expensive. Look at what happened with first editions of James Joyce’s Ulysses last year with the Bloomsday centenary - prices multiplied by five or seven times.

“It looks like the same thing will happen with the 1916 documents. Centenaries tend to focus people’s minds and attention and they decide they want a part of it.”

It’s not just copies of the proclamation that have blown anticipated sale prices out of the water. Last month a letter of surrender signed by Padraig Pearse at the end of the 1916 Rising sold for almost £500,000 at a Dublin auction after it exceeded its guide price of £55,000 within the first minute of bidding.

It’s enough to make anyone wonder what could be hidden in that dusty old attic. So, apart from the approaching 1916 centenary, why the sudden interest in one of the most turbulent periods of Irish history and why are so many items connected to that time coming to auction?

A glance at the catalogue for this weekend’s auction at the RDS reveals a fascinating collection of memorabilia, from a United Irishmen certificate of membership, dated May 1798 (guide price: £560-£700); a handwritten letter in Irish by Padraig Pearse regarding a pupil at his school, St Enda’s (£2,800-£4,100); an IRA proclamation issued from the Four Courts in 1922, signalling the start of the Civil War (£1,400-£2,100); a cheque handwritten and signed by Padraig Pearse (£210-£350) and assorted War of Independence medals.

“This auction is certainly one of the most interesting we’ve had for quite a while,” says Ian Whyte. “The fact that similar items have attracted so much attention and such high prices recently is one of the main reasons why we are seeing so many documents like this coming to auction.

“Another aspect is the fact that these things were handed down from generation to generation and we’re now three or four generations away from that period.

“People may no longer feel such a strong emotional connection to that time. Twenty years ago these items may have been valued as family heirlooms because granddad was involved but now there is a distance from those events.

“We have also found that some people don’t want the responsibility of keeping such valuable items in a normal house because of the fear that someone could come in to damage or steal them.”

Whyte is expecting most of the interest at Sunday’s auction to focus on the 1916 proclamation, the Collins autograph, the Pearse letter and cheque, and a portrait of Collins by Sir John Lavery, signed by Collins and the artist.

As for the buyers, they range from wealthy private collectors to academic institutions and tend, for the most part, to be from outside Ireland.

The person who bought Pearse’s letter of surrender is understood to be European, though many believe the buyer was acting on behalf of an Irish-American with a strong interest in republican history.

“If something like this is bought by someone overseas, it’s usually a person with a really strong Irish connection,” Whyte says. “You’re not really going to come across someone who’s just buying it for an investment and has no interest in it. There’s usually some kind of historical or emotional link.

“The last time I sold a 1916 proclamation was four years ago to an Irish American in New York. His grandfather came from Cork with a shovel on his back and now this man owns his own bank. It just shows you the success stories out there.”

Not everyone is happy that so many significant historical documents are being sold to overseas buyers. Representatives from the National Heritage Conservation Group attempted to buy the Pearse surrender letter last month but were forced to drop out of the bidding within the first minute. They had previously lobbied the Irish government to purchase the letter on behalf of the National Museum but government officials argued that a number of similar documents were already held by the State.

In the face of criticism following the sale, Irish Finance Minister Brian Cowen made a rather lame appeal to the new owner to make it available to the national archives. Too little, too late, heritage activists say.

“The government is simply not taking care of our history,” says Damien Cassidy, from the National Heritage Conservation Group. “We have come into a new era in which all that happened in 1916 doesn’t seem to hold much relevance to people who are three or four generations removed from it. Unfortunately, our government doesn’t seem to care either.

“We don’t have an equivalent of the National Trust here and that is a major part of the problem. These items should not be allowed out of the country. This is a haemorrhaging of our history and no one seems to mind.”

Telegraph

Born in the slums, reaching for the stars
(Filed: 08/06/2005)

Elizabeth Grice meets the self-made Irish millionaire who believes poverty is no barrier to success

click to view - Bill Cullen shows off his Virgin Galactic jacket

You could say Bill Cullen started to make money from the moment he was born. He slithered into this world in a caul, the unbroken membrane that had enveloped him in the womb.

Trading on local superstition that a caul will protect a seaman from drowning, his impoverished Irish family sold the tissue-like relic at auction in Thomas Delaney’s pub in Dublin’s north docks for £25. The year was 1942 and the money kept the Cullen family fed for 12 months.

“Did that accident of birth create a lucky charm for me?” he asks. “I don’t think so. The more my mother called me her lucky child, the more I believed I was lucky. I took chances as a youngster because I believed things would work out for me.”

And look what happened. Cullen was one of 14 children born into the sort of grinding poverty that is barely survivable - a one-room tenement slum, walls running with water, leaking roof, newspapers as carpet, turf fire, no electricity, no plumbed water, three beds for 16 people. Two infant siblings died of viral pneumonia. From the age of five, Bill was on the streets helping his mother sell fruit, wearing potato sacks in winter to keep out the rain. At 13, he was expelled from a Christian Brothers school (for playing the banned English game of soccer) and began to deploy his savvy street-trading skills full time.

As a child, with his family

Suspecting that his 700 job applications failed because of his notorious address, he “borrowed” a priest’s address and was taken on as a messenger boy for £1 a week at Walden’s, a car dealership. Eight years later, aged 22, he was running the company.

Today, Cullen is the multi-millionaire owner of Renault Ireland, with a turnover of £300 million. He owns a five-star hotel in Killarney, a 43-room Palladian house in Co Kildare, set in 20 acres, and has a home in Orlando, Florida. In the week, he drives a Renault, but at weekends he enjoys the sleek beauty of a Bentley Continental GT and an Aston Martin. In his personal Bell 222 helicopter, he flew to London this week to promote his book about how other people can be as successful as he is, in whatever field they choose, if they follow a few simple rules.

On Monday, he went into a North London classroom of disaffected teenagers with a message of confidence, self-esteem and self-assertiveness. Tomorrow, he will be having dinner with the Queen, who will no doubt note these cardinal virtues in Cullen himself.

Mostly, he had the students eating out of his massive palm. But one boy, it seemed, was determined to upset Cullen’s day with cocky interruptions. Cullen targeted him right away and went over to have a word, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I squeezed very gently and said: ‘You’re not really as tough as you’re making out to be, are you? Can you tip your toes with your wrist without bending your knees?’ And I did it. I said I would show him how later. It quietened him down and he got very interested in what I was saying.”

Because of building works, he couldn’t land his helicopter in the school yard. A shame, he felt, because the chopper “starts the whole process of me getting through to them”. It captures their attention, reinforces his message that everything is possible and gives him the chance to reward, with a ride, four students who answer his questions best. “Every young person comes out to see it and they remember the fella who came in the chopper.” Lest they forget, he sends small gifts on later, with smiley stickers for their mirrors that say “I am terrific” - a mantra his formidable grandmother, Molly, taught him to repeat every morning.

With genuine passion, Cullen does this kind of thing in schools three times a month in Ireland, and has even taken his gospel of self-help into all-black schools in the Bronx. “So it makes you feel good?” someone once asked him accusingly. “It makes me feel terrific!” Cullen retorted. As president of the Irish Youth Foundation, he raises vast amounts of money for under-privileged inner-city children. All the profits from his best-selling autobiography, It’s a Long Way from Penny Apples, were funnelled there.

Cullen was goaded to write his memoir by Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt’s irredeemably depressing account of growing up in the slums of Limerick.

“I got to page 30 and just threw it down. The father was an alcoholic, the mother was dysfunctional, she couldn’t cope. I lived in the same circumstances, but this is not what I remember.

Our community was a wide, extended family where people took care of one another.

“McCourt said the only thing worse than a miserable childhood is a miserable Irish childhood. That annoyed me. That upset me. We lived in miserable conditions, but my mother wouldn’t let you do misery. We were poor, the neighbours were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor. We had values that counted for much more than money.”

Cullen’s account of growing up in the Summerhill tenements is a tribute to his mother, Mary Darcy, whose positivism defied everything fate could throw at them. She told her son repeatedly that he would never meet a better man than himself. She sent him back to shopkeepers with complaints about their goods to give him the “hard neck” to stand up to authority in later life. In his turn, he taught her to read and later, as his father did, gave her his pay packet unopened.

The one-room household was run like an army camp, on Dettol and discipline. There were two meals a day, eaten with spoons sharpened at one side because they had no knives or forks. No one was allowed to sleep in. The walls might have been streaming with damp, but the doorknobs were polished and the windows shone. Trousers were pressed under the mattress. The only privacy Cullen’s parents enjoyed was on a Sunday afternoon when he was instructed to take his siblings out for a walk and not to come back till 5.30pm. “They locked the door. It was the only time they had together. That was when they made babies.”

No one was allowed to be lazy, selfish, weak or self-doubting. Cullen’s new motivational book, Golden Apples, is really a distillation of his mother’s homespun utterances, and those of his more philosophical grandmother, with business and fitness principles of his own soldered on. If there is a “secret” to his success, it seems to be no more complicated than having seized opportunities to impress and been prepared to work harder, faster and for longer than anyone else. And, of course, having the right mother. “I wrote more about my mother because I knew her so well. She was my mentor, my partner. I could tell what she was thinking. I had been with her five or six hours every day from the time I was four.”

Cullen with Richard Branson

Though she was proud of his meteoric success, Mary Darcy remained unimpressed by material wealth and regarded all her children with equal pride. She died just as Cullen was embarking on the biggest gamble of his life: borrowing £18 million to take over the bankrupt Renault Ireland in 1986. “It’s a long way from penny apples,” she remarked when he told her.

In his thirties, two significant things happened to Cullen: he was persuaded to have his first taste of alcohol - a glass of wine to celebrate his promotion to head of the car dealership company - and he left the Church after a lifetime of twice-daily attendance at Mass and family prayers. Cullen’s mother had banned alcohol in their home because she had seen what it did to other families. To this day, Cullen never drinks more than two glasses. As for religion, Cullen, a peaceful republican, objected violently when a priest broke into a celebration of Mass with political comments about terrorism in Northern Ireland. He walked out and never returned. “It had lost its soul for me.”

Cullen is an affable giant of a man whose tight-fitting clothes seem hardly up to the job of containing his energy and bulk. His strong black hair stands from his forehead as if he has been mildly electrocuted. His eyes can turn fiery and his huge hands and arms mark him as the son of a 6ft 3in docker and former champion boxer.

He has signed up to be a passenger aboard Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceship in 2007 - and is wearing the bomber jacket to prove it. His ticket to travel 65 miles from Earth has cost him 250,000 euros, and for that, ever competitive, he hopes to be “the first Irishman in space”.

Aged 24, he married Rita, a girl who worked in the same office, and they have two daughters, now in their thirties. Only now is he “in negotiations” to marry his partner of 27 years, Jackie Lavin, a former model who has her own chain of boutiques and is a “great creative mind” behind his business. “My Jackie”, he calls her.

Though Cullen describes himself as a car salesman and says he still enjoys a 60-hour week, these days he has a mentoring role, teaching aides the principles of good business and giving young people pep talks. “I have a very privileged life today, and that’s why I want to give some of my time to the kids. I have a duty to do so. I came from below the totem pole. I was in the ground beneath it. Nobody comes from as low as I do. But we all have the same potential.

elizabeth.grice@telegraph.co.uk

Irish Independent

Praise for the goat that changed a life

A YOUNG African woman whose success story became the subject of a best-selling children’s book and who also featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show travelled to Ireland yesterday to thank a Co Limerick goat farmer who made it all possible.

Beatrice Birra was born 20 years ago into one of the poorest families in the Ugandan village of Kissinga.

CBS photo

Beatrice always dreamed of going to school but her family simply couldn’t afford it.

But in 1992 the family’s fortunes changed after they received an Irish dairy goat as part of a shipment sent to Africa by Bothar, the Third World development organisation.

Catherine Sheehan, a goat farmer from Hospital in Co Limerick helped organise Bothar’s first ever shipment.

Beatrice’s mother was able to sell enough goat’s milk to finally send Beatrice, then 10, to school.

From there, Beatrice won a scholarship to a high school in Kampala before studying in New England. She is now on a scholarship at Connecticut College. She met Catherine Sheehan on her farm yesterday. “It’s really nice to come to Ireland to thank the woman who helped make it all possible for me,” she said. .

Beatrice was invited on to the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2002, and her story is featured in the best-selling children’s book ‘Beatrice’s Goat’ by Page McBrier.

Kathryn Hayes

Guardian Unlimited

Council of Europe rebukes UK on human rights

Simon Jeffery
Wednesday June 8, 2005

Key government policies including house arrest for terrorism suspects, the detention of asylum seekers and the use of antisocial behaviour orders were today attacked in a hard-hitting report from Europe’s human rights watchdog.

Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, praised Britain’s “impressive” formal levels of human rights protection but said the government was clearly starting to feel these were impeding the quest for justice.

“The United Kingdom has not been immune … to a tendency, increasingly discernible across Europe, to consider human rights as excessively restricting the effective administration of justice and the protection of the public interest,” the report said.

The 46-nation Council of Europe is older than the European Union and separate from it. As the custodian of the European human rights convention it regularly reports on its members’ compliance with the code.

Mr Gil-Robles said he had been struck during a visit to the UK by the frequency of calls for a rebalancing of human rights protection in favour of the community rather than the individual.

“Against a background … in which human rights are frequently construed as at best formal commitments and at worst cumbersome obstructions, it is perhaps worth emphasising that human rights are not a pick-and-mix assortment of luxury entitlements but the very foundation of democratic societies,” he said.

His report castigated the recently introduced control orders, under which suspected terrorist suspects are tagged and held under house arrest from 7pm to 7am.

“Quite apart from the obvious flouting of the presumption of innocence, the review proceedings described can only be considered to be fair, independent and impartial with some difficulty,” it said.

On the detention of asylum seekers, Mr Gil-Robles said the placing of detention centres in remote areas meant it was difficult for detainees to have effective legal representation. Commenting on the siting of a centre at Dungavel, he said: “It would take a particularly dedicated lawyer to venture from London, where the majority of proceedings initiate, to the Scottish lowlands to interview his client.”

Of those he had met at Dungavel who were without decent legal representation - the majority, Mr Gil-Robles said - few had any idea how they might apply for bail. “Access to quality legal representation in asylum cases would appear … to be somewhat problematic,” the report said. “This is, indeed, a problem for all stages of asylum proceedings, but it is of particular concern in respect of the deprivation of liberty.”

The author said he had found one instance of a female aslyum seeker being held with ordinary convicts, at Hydebank Wood prison in Belfast. “The lady appeared, certainly, to be as well looked after as one might hope and enjoyed, if that is the right word, as loose a regime as prison conditions afford,” he said. But he warned: “It is clear that prison is no place for asylum seekers.”

In a lengthy section on antisocial behaviour orders, Mr Gil-Robles expressed concern at “enthusiasm” within the government and parliament for extending civil orders to what he said was an ever wider range of offensive acts.

“I do not question the fact that low-level crime and antisocial behaviour constitutes a serious nuisance to ordinary members of the community, which is typically aggravated by a feeling of impotence. Certainly, the state has an obligation to protect society from the rogue behaviour of hoodlums and vandals,” he wrote.

“I do, however, question the appropriateness of empowering local residents to take such matters into their own hands. This feature would, however, appear to be the main selling point of asbos in the eyes of the executive. One cannot but wonder, indeed, whether their purpose is not more to reassure the public that something is being done.”

Mr Gil-Robles said asbos - which can lead to a custodial sentence if they are breached - looked “rather like personalised penal codes, where non-criminal behaviour becomes criminal for individuals who have incurred the wrath of the community.”

He said the use of hearsay evidence to impose an asbo could not be squared with a prison sentence of up to five years without violating article five of the human rights convention on lawful detention.

The campaigning group Liberty said the report made “sober reading”. Its director, Shami Chakrabarti, said: “This important report from a respected international human rights watchdog must be taken extremely seriously by anyone who values democracy or Britain’s reputation in the world.

“It is a serious wake-up call to politicians who have rubbished notions of fairness and basic human dignity for too long. There should be a full parliamentary debate into all the key recommendations.”

Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, said: “The commissioner’s report provides the government with an agenda for action which is based on a firm commitment to human rights. The UK government should heed the words of such a leading spokesperson on human rights.”

Britain was one of the 10 founding members of the Council of Europe and the first treaty to ratify the human rights convention. Mr Gil-Robles said Britain had shown a “generally impressive commitment to the respect for human rights over the past decades.”

BBC

NI terror feud led to bomb attack

The explosive device malfunctioned, the court heard.

A feud between loyalist terrorists in Northern Ireland spilled over to England with a revenge car bomb attack, Preston Crown Court heard on Wednesday.

Stanley Curry tried to blow up John “Big Jack” Thompson, a friend of former paramilitary leader Johnny Adair, in Bolton, the jury was told.

Mr Curry, 47, of Bilton Grange Road, Yardley, Birmingham, denies a charge of conspiracy to cause an explosion.

The December 2003 attack on Thompson’s car failed as the device malfunctioned.

‘Terror feud’

Adair and Thompson fled to Bolton, Greater Manchester, in February 2003 after a feud among loyalist paramilitary gangs in Belfast.

Adair had been commander of the West Belfast ‘C’ Company of the Ulster Freedom Fighters which had broken ranks with the rest of the UFF.

The court heard train driver Mr Curry blamed Adair’s faction for the killings of John Gregg and Robert Carson, members of the opposing faction, who were shot dead in a taxi in Belfast in 2003.

A bomb was placed under Thompson’s red Ford Escort overnight in Windsor Grove in the Halliwell area of Bolton, on 16 December 2003, the court heard.

‘Loud bang’

He heard a loud bang after going over a speed bump in his car on the way to work, said Mark Ellison, prosecuting.

A small detonator exploded but not enough to explode the bomb placed directly the driver’s seat.

“It was only that technical failure, clearly we suggest wholly unintended by those intending to blow him up, that enabled him to walk away from what would have been very serious injuries or death,” Mr Ellison added.

He said CCTV evidence showed Mr Curry went on scouting trips to Thompson’s address.

Memorial tattoo

DNA evidence from components of the bomb were linked to Mr Curry, the court heard.

Mr Curry, a divorced father-of-one originally from Moreton, Wirral, also visited Northern Ireland regularly and planned to sell his home to live in Belfast where “his type of people” live, he told police.

The court heard he had a tattoo on his back in memory of John Gregg and Robert Carson.

Police also recovered photos of him posing with loyalist banners, including flags showing UFF West Midlands and Midlands Brigade.

The defendant told police he only went to Bolton to buy tickets for a Liverpool FC game and denied being there the night the bomb was planted.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.

CNN.com

click to view - more photos on site

“Shapelle Corby wipes tears from her eyes as her interpreter Eka looks on during her trial on Friday, May 27. The court convicted Corby of smuggling 4.1 kilograms (9 pounds) of marijuana into the tourist island and sentenced her to 20 years in prison.”

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Daily Ireland

Memorial mass for hunger strike families

By Jarlath Kearney
j.kearney@dailyireland.com

Relatives of the 1981 hunger strikers attended a special Mass in the Long Kesh prison hospital canteen last Saturday, Daily Ireland has learned.

click to view - photo from coiste.ie

The private Mass involved approximately 60 relatives of the hunger strikers. It followed dozens of previous visits by hundreds of former prison officers and prisoners.
The republican ex-prisoners’ network Coiste na nIarchimí organised the event but the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister facilitated the arrangements.
Former Long Kesh chaplains Fr Tom Toner and Fr John Murphy concelebrated the mass.
Oliver Hughes, whose brother Francis was the second hunger striker to die, told Daily Ireland last night that Saturday’s Mass had been one of the most poignant events in his life.
“It was one of the most moving and emotional experiences that I have had this long, long time. When we landed to the gates, I personally hoped we couldn’t get in because I didn’t know how to handle the situation,” Mr Hughes said.

click to view

After being taken to the reception area of Long Kesh, the members of the congregation were moved to the hospital wing, where they were allowed time to move around.
The last time that Mr Hughes and many others had been in the prison hospital was during the hunger strike.
“I immediately recognised the cell my brother was in when he died because I had visited him there the day he died.
“I also recognised the cell Bobby Sands died in because I saw him there the Sunday before and Raymond McCreesh’s cell was right beside Bobby’s.
“I was very, very tense and emotional and, even when someone came forward to speak to me, I was unable to get one word out.
“It was an occasion where I felt both proud and sad — sad that my brother and nine other comrades gave their lives for Ireland and proud at the fact that he was a marker for Ireland,” Mr Hughes said.
Recalling his words to a US reporter outside Long Kesh the evening that Francis passed away, Mr Hughes said: “He was a martyr for old Ireland and not a martyr for the Crown and I still stand by that comment yet.”
Mr Hughes said he could have sat in silence in the hospital wing for a whole day.
He said the solitude of the visit was broken only by someone occasionally asking which cell their loved one had been in.
“The atmosphere would remind you of walking into a chapel out in the country and you open the doors and hear the sound of silence. It was most unusual and strikes you of a place of great faith and religion.
“It’s hard to find the right words but it was a religious occasion and was probably an occasion I will never forget.
“But as I said to someone afterwards, my batteries have been charged and I feel a better republican after Saturday,” Mr Hughes said.

BreakingNews.ie

**HELLO! The PISSNI fire shots at someone they don’t even know is the right man, and this is called ‘embarrassing’???

Prisoner-hunt police fire shots chasing wrong man

08/06/2005 - 15:30:08

Police hunting an escaped prisoner fired shots while chasing the wrong man.

The hunt for David Taggart, 24, who escaped from the courthouse at Lisburn, Co Antrim, after being remanded yesterday on charges of attempted murder and threatening to kill, has been spread across the border.

At the same time the Police Ombudsman mounted an investigation after officers fired shots while chasing a man along a railway track outside Lisburn while mistakenly believing he was the escaped prisoner.

Only when they detained the man did they discover it was a totally innocent person and not Taggart. No-one was injured during the embarrassing case of mistaken identity.

It was the second time Taggart had escaped from a court cell.

Two years ago he managed to flee from Downpatrick Courthouse in Co Down after tricking his way out of his cell. He was on the run for three days before being recaptured.

It is understood that this time he tricked his way out after persuading civilian security guards to open his cell door and then attacking them.

Neither man, employed by Maybin Security Services, was seriously injured but one was treated in hospital.

After no sightings in the Lisburn area the intensive search in the city was scaled down today but stepped up elsewhere.

A close watch was being kept on all air and ferry ports and gardaí were alerted to be on the lookout for him.

However detectives believe the man, originally from the Shankill Road area of Belfast, has gone to ground in the province.

The PSNI described Taggart as a “high-risk prisoner” and said he should not on any account be approached.

Chief Superintendent Ken Henning said: “We are appealing to people: Do not approach him in any shape or form.

“If you happen to come across him, dial 999. Under no circumstances take him on yourself.”

Meanwhile the Prison Officers Association condemned the contracting-out of prisoner escort duties to civilian firms.

POA chairman Finlay Spratt said the British government was just trying to save money by contracting out.

And he added: “The people that awarded this contract to this private security firm have to take responsibility.”

The missing man is described as being 5ft 9in tall, of medium build, with blue eyes, dirty fair hair and ginger stubble. When he escaped he was wearing blue shirt and jeans.

Police believe he may well have shaved and changed his clothes since escaping.

BBC

Paper sorry over journalist slur

An Irish News journalist has received a public apology after a libel action against the Andersonstown News was settled out of court.

Sharon O’Neill sued the paper over an article published three years ago in the Squinter column.

It suggested a piece she wrote on the drugs problem in west Belfast fell short of the standard expected from a responsible journalist.

A lawyer acting for Ms O’Neill said she “hopes to put the matter behind her”.

The apology was read out in the High Court and said the Andersonstown News would indemnify Ms O’Neill against her legal costs.

BBC

Plan to sell ‘Agreement building’

Parliament buildings is not going to be sold off

The government is considering plans to sell the building where the Good Friday Agreement was signed to the private sector.

It has been proposed Castle Buildings, the venue for the 1998 negotiations, should be sold together with Dundonald House and Craigantlet Buildings.

They currently provide accommodation for civil servants.

The plans do not cover Parliament Buildings, Stormont Castle, Stormont House, or the public park area.

The proposals, which have yet to be approved by ministers, would see the government buildings sold to a private finance company which would look after their upkeep and lease them back to government tenants.

The government said the model had been used by the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury and it was hoped the sale would provide better accommodation for staff and deliver savings of about £100m.

Government sources said any sale would be subject to the condition that the land should be primarily for government use.

It is possible that some private sector offices, for example, could be sited at Stormont, but there would be no luxury apartments.

A Department of Finance and Personnel spokesman said: “There are no plans to sell off the Stormont estate. There are, however, plans to rationalise and improve the wider civil service office estate over the next 5-7 years.”

He added: “The feasibility of including some government office buildings at the Dundonald end of the Stormont estate is being considered as part of those plans.”

RTE

Britain granted £12m for Irish-language films

08 June 2005 12:34

Britain has received approval from the European Commission to give grants worth £12 million pounds to promote Irish-language film and television in Northern Ireland.

‘The fund fosters broadcasts for Irish language speakers and I am happy to approve state aid that promotes cultural and regional identity,’ EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.

The fund is part of British commitment in the Good Friday Agreement.

At least 60% of the spoken word in a film or television programme must be in Irish to qualify for aid.

The grant was scrutinised by the EU executive to ensure it was not anti-competitive.

Daily Ireland

‘The worst is yet to come’

by Jarlath Kearney
j.kearney@dailyireland.com

An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice could be rocked by further shocking revelations if a full public inquiry into the 1991 murder of Buncrana Councillor Eddie Fullerton can be established.
Following last week’s devastating report by the Morris Tribunal, which outlined widespread corruption and negligence within the Garda, Councillor Fullerton’s son Albert last night declared that “the worst is yet to come”.
Mr Fullerton was assassinated by a loyalist death squad from the North on May 25, 1991 at his home in Buncrana.
Serious questions have surrounded Mr Fullerton’s murder, including the ability of loyalists to gain detailed local intelligence, as well as making safe passage to and from their base in the North.
Mr Fullerton’s family have also highlighted the nature of the original Garda investigation and the Department of Justice’s ongoing conduct as causes of major concern.
As their campaign to expose “collusion and cover-up” in relation to Mr Fullerton’s murder gathers momentum, the Buncrana man’s family will travel to Dublin next week in a bid to secure cross-party backing.
The Fullerton family will take a delegation to Leinster House on Thursday, June 16 at the invitation of Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh. The meeting with cross-party representatives will come just 24 hours ahead of the first Dáil debate on the findings of the Morris Tribunal.
“In my view, when the final truth comes out about Eddie Fullerton’s murder, it will take a generation to build the trust between the people and the Garda which has been destroyed,” Albert Fullerton said.
“The thing is that people in politics and legal circles and the general public haven’t yet come to terms with how damaging this is. The worst is yet to come.
“I was first making it public that Garda corruption and ineptitude existed in 1991 and I have now been totally vindicated.”
Mr Fullerton insisted there is now no possible excuse for failing to have a full public inquiry into his father’s murder.
However, he questioned whether Minister of Justice Michael McDowell would concede the family’s demand for a figure with international repute to sit on such a tribunal.
“We’re now hoping that the TDs we will meet next week are willing to grasp the nettle and recognise that this is a social issue – not a political issue.
“Eddie Fullerton was a fellow elected public representative of the Irish people and we are now asking all political representatives to put the need for a full, public inquiry with international oversight to the Department of Justice as a matter of urgency,” Albert Fullerton said.
Mr Fullerton revealed that his mother Dinah will travel to the Dáil with other family members before attending a crucial private consultation with legal advisers.

Irish Democrat

Mayor pays tribute at Gralton grave in New York

SLIGO MAYOR alderman Declan Bree paid tribute to Leitrim socialist Jim Gralton, during a recent visit to New York.

Speaking at the Leitrimman’s grave in Woodlawn cemetary in the Bronx, Bree said that Gralton personified all that was positive about the Irish and American labour movements: “He was a life-long socialist and trade unionist and a fighter for the rights of ordinary people. Jim Gralton was a working class hero.”

Gralton was a native of Effernagh, Co. Leitrim and immigrated to America as a young man. It was in the United States that he became involved in the labour struggles of the time. Never breaking his links with Ireland he was active in the Connolly Club in New York, which also counted among its members Jim Larkin, Nora Connolly and Liam Mellows.

On his return to Leitrim in 1932, to help his aged parents, he became immersed in political activity. He joined the Revolutionary Workers Group, spoke at numerous anti-eviction meetings and re-opened the Pearse-Connolly Hall in Gowel, Co. Leitrim. When a massive ‘red’ scare enveloped the country in 1933, Gralton became the victim of a political witch-hunt and was deported from Ireland as “an undesirable alien”. Gralton was the only Irishman ever deported from his native land.

The Leitrim socialist was never allowed to return to Ireland and spent the remaining days of his life in the American labour movement. On his return to New York he again became involved in the Irish Workers Clubs and was active in assisting the organisers of the subway and bus workers, who were largely Irish.

In October 1933 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Communist Party in the borough elections in New York. He also stood for alderman in the 13th district of Manhattan.

In the years following he reprinted James Connolly’s pamphlets, raised funds for the International Brigades in Spain and participated in the many campaigns of the period.

He died in New York on 29 December 1945 and was buried in the Bronx. A modest headstone erected by the Irish Workers Clubs marks his grave in the cemetery overlooking part of the great city where Gralton spent so much of his life.

This document was last modified by David Granville on 2005-06-08 10:36:13.
Connolly Publications Ltd, 244 Gray’s Inn Road, London, WC1X 8JR
Copyright © 2001 Connolly Publications Ltd

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RTÉ: Ireland’s Millennia

JIM GRALTON
(1886 - 1945) radical
Born Effernagh, County Leitrim

Son of a small farmer. He joined the British army when young but, refusing to serve in India, deserted, worked on the Liverpool docks and Welsh coalmines, then went to sea in a tramp steamer. He settled in America, worked as a barman and taxi-driver, and became an American citizen in 1909. He joined the American Communist Party and became active in the trade union movement. He raised money for unfortunate fellow-workers and for the republican cause in Ireland. He returned to Leitrim in 1921 and with voluntary local labour built the Pearse-Connolly Hall on his father’s land, conducting there a court to settle local grievances, usually disputes about land. He was denounced by the local clergy as a professed communist leading a campaign of land agitation and went back to New York in 1922.

When Fianna Fáil came to power in 1932 he returned to Leitrim, took over the family farm, and reopened the hall for social events. He came under clerical attack again and the hall was burnt down on Christmas Eve 1932. He was served with a deportation order as an undesirable alien with effect from 4 March 1933, went on the run, and addressed meetings asking for a fair trial, supported by George Gilmore and Peadar O’Donnell. He was arrested on 10 August 1933 and put on board ship for America, where he spent the rest of his life. He was married shortly before his death, which took place in a New York hospital on 29 December 1945.

Source: A Dictionary of Irish Biography, Henry Boylan (ed.), Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1998.

BBC

**from the ‘well, duh!’ dept. This is the second time Taggart has done this.

Prisoner escort policy criticised

David Taggart who has escaped from a courthouse

The contracting out of prisoner escorts to and from court has been criticised by the Prison Officers’ Association.

The POA’s Finlay Spratt, speaking after the escape of “high risk” prisoner David Taggart, said the government was just concerned about saving money.

“These people that awarded this contract to this private security firm have to take responsibility,” he said.

The 24-year-old, charged with attempted murder, remains at large after breaking out of Lisburn courthouse.

He fled after being remanded in custody on the attempted murder charge and a threat to kill charge at the County Antrim court on Tuesday.

Police have described him as a “high risk prisoner” who should not be approached.

Two security guards were injured in the incident. Shots were later fired by police trying to re-capture him.

The prisoner broke out of the courthouse at about 1335 BST on Tuesday.

Vehicles being stopped in the hunt for the man

He had been in the custody of private security firm Maybin Security Services at the time.

A PSNI spotter plane was involved in the hunt for him and officers searched the railway line between Lisburn and the nearby village of Lambeg.

Checkpoints were also set up on roads leaving Lisburn.

The prisoner was later spotted a mile outside Lisburn, near Knockmore halt. Shots were fired, but no-one was injured. The Police Ombudsman was informed.

Northern Ireland Security Minister Shaun Woodward, who expressed his concern at the break out, said the police were doing all in their power to apprehend the escapee.

“I am confident that we will manage to do so,” he said.

“But nonetheless, like everybody else, when these things happen, it is pretty shocking and we need to act quickly.”

He is described as 5ft 9ins, of medium build with blue eyes, dirty fair hair and ginger stubble.

He was wearing a blue shirt and jeans.

Anyone with information is urged to contact police at Lisburn.

INA/Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 42

Today, 8 June, in 1981, Thomas McElwee began his hunger strike.

“Thomas McElwee was born into a large family of eight girls and three boys. He lead the typical life of a nationalist lad in the South Derry countryside, full of promise but very little chance to rise in the world. Young Tom wanted to study to become a mechanic, but the only opportunity to do so was in Ballymena, Paisley-land, where he was harassed and had his tools stolen. So, he settled into work around his home near the town of Bellaghy on the Tamlaghtduff Road. Frank Hughes was his cousin and their large family and his were close. The McElwee boys, like the Hughes boys and the other nationalist families were constantly harassed by the RUC, UDR and British army.

Thomas and Benedict were arrested and taken away for questioning regularly. Still, it came as a surprise when the phone rang with the news of the premature bomb explosion and the condition of the two boys. Fighting the Brits force for force was not necessarily surprising in South Derry.”

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Thomas McElwee

“Sincere, easy-going and full of fun.

THE TENTH republican to join the hunger strike was twenty-three-year-old IRA Volunteer Thomas McElwee, from Bellaghy in South Derry. He had been imprisoned since December 1976, following a premature explosion in which he lost an eye.

He was a first cousin of Francis Hughes…”

>>>Read Thomas McElwee’s biography at Irish Hunger Strike 1981 Memorial Website

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